It’s time for the 24th annual Media Research Center’s awards for the most biased, manipulative or downright goofy quotes from liberals in the “mainstream” media. I’m honored to serve, once again, on MRC’s distinguished panel of conservatively-biased judges. Here are some of the lowlights from among the winners and runners-up of Best Notable Quotables of 2011:

The Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity:

“All you Tea Party spokespeople, you work for the Koch brothers and they’re like billionaires. … The Tea Party is owned by the richest people in the world. … Dick Cheney didn’t earn one damn thing. Guy’s never worked an honest day in his life. … [Sarah Palin] is a loon and I think she’s kind of a traitor to this country. … Her followers are the dumbest people on Earth. … They can barely scare up a pulse. I’m serious.”

— Roseanne Barr on CNN, Jan. 5

The Poison Tea Pot Award for Smearing the Anti-Obama Rabble:

“Tea Party budget-slashers … were like cannibals, eating their own party and leaders alive. They were like vampires, draining the country’s reputation, credit rating and compassion. They were like zombies, relentlessly and mindlessly coming back again and again to assault their unnerved victims, [House Speaker John] Boehner and President Obama. They were like the metallic beasts in ‘Alien’ flashing mouths of teeth inside other mouths of teeth, bursting out of Boehner’s stomach every time he came to a bouquet of microphones.”

— Columnist Maureen Dowd, in The New York Times, Aug. 3

The Audacity of Dopes Award for the Wackiest Analysis of the Year:

“Ms. Abramson said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of the Times to be like ‘ascending to Valhalla.’ In my house growing up, the Times substituted for religion,’ she said. ‘If the Times said it, it was the absolute truth.’ ”

— From a June 2 New York Times online story by managing editor Jeremy Peters, quoting newly named New York Times editor Jill Abramson

(Apparently, even the Times has some shame: in the paper’s June 3 print edition, the second half of the quote was removed from Peters’ front-page story.)

Occupy My Heart and Soul Award for Left-Wing Protest Promotion:

“We thought we’d bring you up to date on these protestors, the Occupy Wall Street movement. As of tonight, it has spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries — every continent but Antarctica.

— Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “World News, ” Oct. 10

Note to Sawyer: The consensus of current world atlases counts 193 countries in the world, not “more than a thousand” with the status of a few more in dispute.

Damn Those Conservatives Award:

“President Obama is going to be visiting Joplin, Missouri, on Sunday, but you know what they’re talking about? Like this right-wing slut, what’s her name, Laura Ingraham? Yeah, she’s a talk slut. You see, she was, back in the day, praising President Reagan when he was drinking a beer overseas. But now that Obama’s doing it, they’re working him over.”

— Ed Schultz on his MSNBC radio program, May 24

Quote of the Year:

“What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. [The] atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush race to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neo-cons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons. … The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.”

— Columnist Paul Krugman in a Sept. 11 posting to his New York Times blog

If your stomach is strong enough to handle the complete awards list, you can get it online at www.MRC.org.

Freelance columnist Mike Rosen’s radio show airs weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon on 850-KOA.